"Hell may have no fury like a woman scorned but
heaven hath no sweetness like a sports fan vindicated." - Samcat

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Now with more Aggravation!

Yup.

Twelve. That’s how many times you can bang your head against the wall before your brain starts to leak out your ears. Or before your upstairs neighbors start to stomp on the floor in an attempt to get you to stop the pounding.

Correct me if I’m wrong but are we or are we not the World Champion Boston Red Sox? And by “we,” I mean, “those 25 bastards wearing uniforms and making a mockery of middle relief and the game of baseball as a whole.” Apologies to Sam but these are the Tigers. The Detroit Tigers suck. It’s what they do. They’ve made a whole new art form out of sucking. Last year, they had a starter lose twenty games. These are the kind of teams we’re supposed to beat up on. In this story, we’re the bullies holding the flailing nerds at arms’ length, smirking and watching them pound away in futility. In this story, the nerd is not supposed to somehow grow biceps, grab the bully’s arm, twist it at the shoulder and make the bully cry uncle. That’s not how the story goes!

Damn you, Detroit Tigers for not following the script!

But damn you even more, Red Sox for allowing it to happen. Yes, I know we started like the ninth guy on our starting pitching depth chart, but the little bastard held it together pretty well for a while. Despite an alarming penchant for giving up leadoff triples (seriously, a triple is hard to hit, and he gave up three of them. I’m blaming the wonky angles at Comerica), Jeremi Gonzalez had a bunch of strikeouts and gave up three runs. The Red Sox, boasting such talents as Papi Don’t Play That Ortiz as well as former batting champs Manny Ramirez and Bill Mueller should surely be able to score more than three runs off Jeremy Bonderman. I mean really. Who the hell is Jeremy Bonderman? (Note: Do not bother answering these rhetorical questions if you’re Sam). Exactly. He’s no one. Our no one should trump their no one. Because we’re the champs, is why.

And yet, for some reason unknown to man or beast, our recently emancipated manager puts Blaine Neal in the game. In the 6th inning. Of a tie game. Blaine, as he is wont to do, promptly gave up a two run homer to Carlos Pena. Now, I know that Carlos Pena is Mr. Northeastern and hails from Haverhill and, as a Massachusetts resident I should be somewhat neutral, if not happy about this. But the thing is, when you Google "Carlos Pena," you get this:

You’re gonna give up a two-run homer to that? Brother, please.

Because our offense is currently using Kevin Millar’s new babies’ receiving blankets as bats, we were done for the night. All “Yeah, thanks but we’d like to hit the showers now.” The hell? Of course, this was AFTER they developed a new and excruciating way for me to lose my hair by loading the bases with one or no outs and then proceeding to come away with exactly nothing. But I’d rather not talk about it because I might kill a small creature.

Also, how is it mathematically possible that Edgar Renteria ends Every. Single. Inning? Granted, I’m not a numbers person but by the law of averages, this has to be highly unprecedented. I give him approximately two more games before I lay into him, but good. His new name will be something like Ender of Rallies. Except meaner.

And then, THEN, just to make things worse, just to take me to the brink of insanity and leave me teetering on the edge, one toe in complete lunacy, Alan Embree decides it would be jolly good fun to give up another home run to Carlos Pena. A reminder:

At that point, it turned into a bloodbath and I really did start to giggle maniacally, rocking back and forth on the couch and clutching my stomach. Behavior, I might add, which would have been positively terrifying were there someone else home. As it was, I was alone and worried myself mildly. Do you hear that, Red Sox? You are causing me to worry myself!

I sincerely hope Cap’n Tek (who is not far from the shit list himself and is certainly not getting the guacamole I dirtied an irresponsible number of dishes making) went into that clubhouse, removed his mask…and beat his teammates senseless with it.

8-3 is how it ended. 8 fucking 3. God. My friend Jen’s lovely and charming boyfriend, Cesar, a native of the Dominican Republic, would no doubt sum it up thusly: fuckermothers.